World Monuments Fund Names 25 At-Risk Cultural Sites

At a press conference at its offices in the Empire State Building today, the World Monuments Fund named 25 cultural heritage sites spanning 30 countries that it is placing on its 2018 World Monuments Watch list, meaning that they are currently threatened by conflict, climate change, or other dangers.

The sites, which include storm-ravaged areas in the Caribbean, the Gulf, and Mexico, and the Souk in Aleppo, Syria, which has been damaged in the country’s ongoing civil war, will be the focus of advocacy and preservation work by the WMF and partner organizations.

Also on the 2018 Watch, which is published every two years, are what the organization has termed Alabama Civil Rights Sites, little-known landmarks of the civil rights movement, like churches, homes, and other community spaces, in the state.

“Social importance has been embedded in the Watch, but I think the Alabama Civil Rights sites represent the first example of something that really is about a profound social movement,” Lisa Ackerman, the executive vice president and chief operating officer of the WMF, said. “This is a historic opportunity for us to demonstrate that these sites are as significant as any of the sites that have been on the Watch in the past that might have been there more purely for their architectural significance.”

Sites that receive support from the WMF typically have architectural or cultural significance, while also often having symbolic value for their locations or groups associated with them. “If you let an anchor of the community go,” Ackerman said, “you risk so much more to the local residents.”